Oh Chute!
by Carrie L
Summary: An A/U take on the Chute episode, with Janeway and Chakotay imprisoned instead of Tom and Harry. Expect about a half dozen short chapters. Rated M out of an abundance of caution (it's a prison story, be warned), and apologies to anyone I've unintentionally ripped off. As they say, it's all been done before. J/C, what else? Ch. 6 now up.
1. Chapter 1

After the last interrogation – each one more forceful than the last – the Akritirians took Janeway's uniform and gave her a brown jumpsuit that stank of some powerful cleaning solution. She'd barely had time to change when three armed guards appeared at the door of her cell.

"Prison transfer," the one in front said. He gestured down the hall with the butt of his weapon.

"Prison? No!" Janeway protested. "I haven't even heard any charges against me, just questions about a bombing I know nothing about. I haven't been tried or convicted. You have the wrong person."

"No need for a trial when the evidence is conclusive, under Akritirian law. You were tried in absentia and sentenced to life imprisonment. Now _move!_" ordered the guard. He yanked her out of the cell by her arm and prodded her into motion with the weapon.

"I demand to speak to – " she began.

"SILENCE!" shouted the guard as he knocked her to the floor with the blunt end of the weapon. Janeway staggered up and moved in the direction he pointed.

The trip down the chute was unexpected, abrupt, and terrifying. She was unable to slow her descent. Dizzying, bright lights flashed around her and klaxons sounded the entire way down, some several hundred feet if she hadn't entirely lost her bearings. She landed hard on her elbow and hip with a cry of shock more than pain. The sound of voices crowded near her but it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness and see the faces of at least several dozen dirty men staring down at her. They all seemed to be Akritirian.

As Janeway pushed herself from the floor and tried to stand, the nearest man grabbed her. She shoved back, but more hands snatched at her from the other side and from behind. Someone pushed her back to the floor. Janeway rolled to her back and coiled her legs to slam into the man's chest as he jumped her. The crowd closed in, grabbing at her limbs and clothing. She reached for every vulnerable body part she could see, poking, kicking, punching and biting at throats, groins, knees, eyes, fingers. Retaliating blows rained down on her. A kick to the head had almost knocked her unconscious when Janeway felt strong hands dragging her out of the crowd. She was squirming to get into a position to attack this new aggressor when she heard his voice, loud and threatening above her head.

"This woman is my property!" he yelled. "Anybody who lays a hand on her will pull back a stump, got it?" It was Chakotay. Janeway shut her eyes as pain and overwhelming darkness took her.


	2. Chapter 2

A few minutes later, when consciousness returned along with even more pain, Janeway found herself on a cot in a small shelter consisting of a few hanging sheets that hid them from alarming fight noises outside. Chakotay was treating a gash on the side of her head with a warm cloth.

"Thank the spirits you're awake," he said. "That was a bad blow to the head. How does it feel?"

Janeway tried to sit up but fell back quickly as nausea hit. "I went through worse training exercises at the Academy," she joked in a weak voice.

Chakotay sat back on his heels and scoffed. "Sure you did. I know how they like to beat the cadets until morale improves."

Her eyes followed him with alarm as he rinsed her blood from the cloth in a small cup. It was more blood than she'd expected. "Chakotay, what is this place?"

He looked around, as if satisfying himself that they were alone and safe, for the moment. His eyes fixed hers. "It's a bad place, Kathryn. We're in an underground Akritirian maximum security prison with fifty other prisoners. There are only a few other women. I've seen them fought over as prized possessions, then bartered the next day for food. Best I can tell, I've been here several days with only what food or water I've been able to trade for." He held his arms wide so that his jumpsuit flapped against him. "I used to have a belt." Janeway looked down. She still had hers, but in the fight it had come loose. Someone had tried to steal it already.

"Did they arrest you in the market, too?" she asked.

He nodded. "I don't know why. They brought me here the first day."

Janeway stretched her arms and legs, expecting more pain, but none of her other injuries seemed severe. "At least I can help with an explanation. I've spent the last few days under harsh interrogation over a terrorist bombing the Akritirians believe you and I coordinated."

Chakotay's face was incredulous. "A bombing? We'd been on the planet less than half an hour when they arrested me. We'd have to be the fastest working terrorists in the galaxy. I heard some kind of percussive noise on the far end of the market, but I thought it must be a performance."

Janeway rolled her eyes. "I guess we should be flattered. They think we're elite operatives in league with rebel forces. It's straight out of a holonovel. I'd be amused if I hadn't just been sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia."

"_What?_"

"I know. I wish I had a better explanation, but that's all anybody told me, and here we are. I'm sure Tuvok and the crew will be doing everything they can to straighten this out, but meanwhile, we've got to find a way out of here." Again, Janeway tried to push herself into a sitting position and grimaced at the way her head swam. Chakotay took her by the shoulders and forced her back down to the cot.

"You won't do us any good unconscious," he chided. "I haven't seen any possible escape routes. The Akritirians control the inmates with a neural clamp." He turned his head and leaned over Janeway to show her the metal implant on the back of his skull. With a horrified expression, she felt for her own.

"If only he'd kicked me right on the clamp, he might have disabled it!" she grumbled.

Chakotay shook his head. "I wouldn't wish for that. I saw an Akritirian die trying to disable his." The sound of movement in the direction of the chute distracted him. "Stay here. Stay hidden. It might be food."

To cower and wait when survival was on the line ran contrary to all Janeway's instincts, but she was in no condition to get up, let alone help Chakotay claim their share of anything that came down the chute. She watched shadows move all in one direction, then come rushing back the other way a few minutes later. The edge of a sheet lifted and Chakotay slipped back inside. By her best guess, he'd been gone less than two minutes, but his hands were full.

"You got something!" she said. "What is it?"

He was panting much harder than the brief trip to the chute would justify. He stood just inside the shelter, slightly bent over.

"Chakotay?" she tried again. "What happened?"

"I just watched two men kill another over food. I grabbed what was closest and ran." As he spoke, he staggered the few short steps to the cot and fell to his knees beside her. She reached her arm around him and he collapsed toward her. A parcel of hard bread and some sort of root vegetable, and what she hoped was a water canteen tumbled onto the cot. Janeway hugged Chakotay around his shoulders in thanks.

"We'll get out of here," she promised. "We'll find a way."


	3. Chapter 3

As Chakotay leaned against the cot, unresponsive, Janeway grew more alarmed. She patted his shoulder but he didn't move.

"Are you all right?" she whispered at Chakotay's bent head. "Chakotay, what's wrong?"

He took a long, shuddering breath and exhaled hard. "It's taking me, Kathryn. The clamp. Watching those men attack the other one – all I could think was how much more I could get if I killed a few of the weaker ones. I'm losing my mind. I'm afraid –" He shot a quick glance at her pale face. "I'm afraid that before long, I'll be a threat to everyone, including you. If that happens, you have to promise me that you'll disable me. My knees, maybe. If you took out my knees, I wouldn't be able to go after anyone, but I might still be able to defend myself, and the doc could fix it, after we're rescued."

Janeway's head was still throbbing with the force of the blow she had taken, but the mortal seriousness of Chakotay's request somehow calmed and concentrated her mind.

"I hope it never comes to that," she said. "But if it does, yes, I promise. I'll try to stop you from doing things you'd regret, and I'll try to do it in a way that the doctor can heal. Will you do the same for me?"

His face twisted with dark humor at this request. "That won't happen. But yes, I promise."

Janeway opened the parcel of bread. "Come on, let's eat some of this and try to get some rest. Do the lights ever go off?"

Chakotay grunted. "Oh yeah. You'll see."

Cycling lights were the only way to maintain any sense of day and night inside the prison, and they were set to a thirty hour Akritirian day. As they scouted escape routes over the next few days, Janeway and Chakotay tried to sleep in shifts in the dark period, but found it lasted longer than they could stay asleep. As the dark hours stretched, they sat cross-legged together on the cot, whispering about what Voyager might be doing and how long they might expect to be imprisoned.

The light period was equally over-long, like the longest day of summer on Earth and then some. They concluded quickly that the chute was the only way in or out. Chakotay scavenged anything that looked remotely mechanical and Janeway began to piece together a device that might short-circuit the chute's force field. As she forced her mind to focus on the close, technical work in poor light, the itch of the clamp grew almost unbearable. From time to time she would throw down the device on the cot and keel over, crying out softly from the pain and frustration of trying to defend the working parts of her mind against the clamp's insistent chaos.

"You have to meditate," Chakotay would insist at these moments, earning him a flailing blow from Janeway.

"How can I meditate when I can't sit still?" she would hiss. She wanted to scream loud and long, but what safety they had depended on keeping quiet and hidden, so she forced down the urge.

"Strawberries and cream," Chakotay told her more than once. "Eggs Benedict with fresh asparagus. Whole pots of coffee." She had to smile at his attempt to use dreams of food as a calming influence if meditation wouldn't work. The thought of food helped. It was a dream of escape and recovery that held hope together.

They could not stay hidden all the time. Janeway had to test her device repeatedly and the other prisoners were always watching as she crept behind the mechanism that operated the force field. While she worked, Chakotay's job was to stand guard over both her and their shelter, which was around a corner, out of sight of the chute. He had just evicted a pair of squatters when Janeway's cry brought him rushing back to her. A small Akritirian had snuck up behind her and now held an improvised blade to her throat.

"Back off!" the man barked at the gathering crowd. "She's mine now!"

Chakotay circled behind the other prisoners observing the little drama to take the man by surprise. It was easy enough to overpower him with Janeway fighting off her attacker at the same time, but Chakotay was unprepared for the rage that seized him when he pulled the blade out of the man's hand. As if watching another person entirely, he saw himself raise the blade high and plunge it into the man's chest as Janeway stared at them both in shock. With a weak cry, the man fell dead from Chakotay's grasp. The crowd backed away as Janeway grabbed Chakotay's arm and hurried him back to their shelter.

Another squatter had installed himself on the cot by the time they returned, but the sight of Chakotay, bloody blade still clutched in one hand, convinced him that his timing was wrong. He bolted. Another, taller man stood watching at the entrance to the shelter, making no aggressive moves, but not backing off.

"What do you want?" Janeway demanded as she pushed through the wall of fabric. "Leave us alone!"

The man had only his head and shoulder inside the shelter, ready for a quick exit if Chakotay came at him. "My name is Zio," he said to Janeway as Chakotay leaned back on the cot, panting and heaving as if he might throw up. "I couldn't help but notice the vulnerability of your situation. It's only a matter of time before someone kills your friend here to get to you, especially if you keep going out in the open like that. I could help you. I have a better shelter, close to the chute."

Janeway carefully peeled the blade out of Chakotay's hand and held it as she considered Zio's words and his impassive face. Chakotay stared straight ahead, lost in the chaos of the clamp.

"That would help," she conceded. "We're working on a way to disarm the force field so that we can escape to the surface. If you help us with food and hiding, we'll take you with us."

Zio studied both Janeway and Chakotay before nodding. "I'll accept that arrangement, for now. But your device had better work. I'll kill you both if you're lying."


	4. Chapter 4

Zio's shelter had cots for all three of them and a good enough view of the chute that Janeway's tests on the device could continue more safely. Janeway and Chakotay didn't ask where the former residents had gone, but a day or so later when Zio finally distanced himself from the shelter, looking for more parts for the device, Chakotay edged close to speak in Janeway's ear.

"You don't see the way he looks at you. We can't trust him," he insisted. "He's just looking for a chance to get rid of me, so he can get to you."

Janeway was sitting on the ground, bent over wires protruding from the device. "I never said we had to trust him, but we do need him to survive long enough to get out of here."

Chakotay's face was sweaty, Janeway noticed, now that he was leaning close. He smelled like a targ and was scratching manically at his clamp. He jumped up to pace the tiny space. She had also observed that Chakotay was on such constant guard around Zio that he was no longer able to meditate.

"You want to escape with him and leave me behind. That's it," he accused as he spun back toward her. "You're going to let him shiv me once the device is working – improve your chances of escape."

Janeway set the device on the ground beside her and faced him fully. "No. Chakotay, listen to me. You are my friend. I would never betray you. But you've had the clamp several days longer than I have. It's affecting you more, especially when you can't meditate. You have to remember that." She was up on one knee, a hand on the cot beside her, imploring him to be reasonable.

With a low cry, Chakotay seized her by her arms and threw her down on the cot. "Don't tell me what to remember," he said, his face inches from hers. "I remember everything."

"Then remember who you are," Janeway answered. His knee had pinned her leg painfully but she kept her face calm. She searched for the man she knew in the crazed depths of his brown eyes but found only a frightening stranger. Somehow, she had to call back her friend. "Remember that you're the best first officer I've ever had. Remember that you're my best friend."

His eyes were fixed and angry, pupils dilated. He looked drugged, Janeway thought, or possessed. The clamp was like a different brain taking over. He pressed even closer and whispered in her ear, "I remember that I'm the man you've denied all these years. You're my property now, Kathryn. You'll give me what I want." Before she could protest, he lifted his head just enough to force his mouth down on hers.

Janeway was angry too. Her mind was running through ways to force him off her and inflict maximum damage – take out his knees, like he'd said – but the clamp was acting on her too. Besides arousing her aggressions, it was arousing every animal survival instinct in her, including a primal mating urge almost Klingon in its ferocity. The sensation of Chakotay's heavy body stretched on top of hers was powerfully erotic. Without consciously intending to, she grabbed the loose fabric of his jumpsuit and yanked him closer as she growled into his kiss.

The flicker of light as Zio re-entered the shelter was enough to startle them apart like guilty teenagers.

"Don't mind me," Zio said with an airy wave at the cot where Janeway and Chakotay now sat at opposite ends, looking away from each other. "This place is all about baser urges, and I like to watch." Red-faced and mortified, Janeway slid back to the floor to return to her work on the device. Chakotay rose to examine Zio's new finds.

Later that day, Janeway managed to disable the force field for the first time as the others stood guard. She climbed to the top of the chute – a significant effort in her best condition, completely draining as she was, injured and dehydrated. When she wiped clean the hatch at the top, the sight of deep space, not the planet's surface, was more of an emotional blow than she was prepared to face. She sat still for several minutes fighting down a panic made all the more intense by the clamp.

Alone at the top of the chute, Janeway tried to calm her mind enough to form a plan. There would be supply ships coming to this hatch. They had to find a way to take one of those ships, and that would require as many of the prisoners as possible, all that hadn't yet been driven completely mad by the clamp. It was the only way. She prepared a speech in her mind, straightened her shoulders, and pushed off for the fast ride down.

The response was not what she had hoped.

"We can take it together – " she was saying when the first prisoner tackled her to the ground. Another snatched her by the wrists and began to drag her away. Weakened by the days of imprisonment, she found it harder this time to twist away and land blows. Zio was nowhere to be seen. He had promised only food and shelter, not physical protection, she recalled now. Two men were dragging her away from the chute when Chakotay landed a ringing blow to the head of one and reeled to take on the other. He didn't see the blade before it had sliced across the middle of his back.

Janeway saw the blood even as Chakotay dropped her second attacker with a series of hard blows. When the man dropped the knife, Chakotay grabbed it and buried it in the man's chest, just as he had before, only this time more practiced, more intentional. Janeway grabbed his hand and hurried him back to Zio's shelter. Chakotay followed, carrying the blade, less shaken than he had been the first time he'd killed another prisoner. He was grinning now, waving the blade as if looking for the next fight, even as he allowed her to pull him back into the shelter. His attitude unsettled her more than being attacked. The Chakotay she knew was no killer.

"What are you doing?" Chakotay demanded when they were hidden again. "We need to get back up the chute!"

"You're hurt," she said. "You need to rest. We'll go back when I've cleaned your wound. We can't let the others see that you're hurt. It will only put you in more danger." She led him to sit on the cot and carefully peeled back his jumpsuit to reveal the bloody slice across his back. She began to pour a little of their small store of water straight onto the wound to flush out any contamination from Chakotay's filthy jumpsuit. "It's not too deep," she told him. "We just need to keep it clean. Try to stay in here until it scabs over."

As Chakotay's racing breath and pulse gradually slowed, he turned his head to the side to speak to her. His own voice – the sound of the Chakotay she remembered – had returned. "It doesn't hurt much," he said. "Not yet, anyway. Might just be the adrenalin. I didn't mean to kill him, Kathryn. It just felt so good, hitting him, and then I saw his knife lying there. I'm getting to the point where I'll attack anyone. I'm not sure how much longer you'll be safe around me." All at once, the energy seemed to drain out of him. A despair that Janeway hadn't seen before now filled his face. He lowered his head.

"Shhh," Janeway soothed. She leaned around to see him better and put a gentle hand to his face. "It's okay. You saved my life, and now we know we can get through the force field. I promised we'd find a way out, and we will. Hold on."

Hesitantly, as if he feared touching her at all, Chakotay lifted his hand to her face. His eyes were his own, but very frightened. They sat that way for a minute, gaining some small measure of comfort from the knowledge that, for now, the clamp had not yet won.


	5. Chapter 5

With his wound exposed to the open air, the best and only medicine available, Chakotay dropped to one side on the cot and fell asleep hard, a big snoring wall of man. The dark cycle had begun. Janeway picked up the device and climbed into the small, protected space between Chakotay and the wall. As dangerous as he could be, the space next to Chakotay still felt like the safest place in the prison. There wasn't enough light to tune the device any further. Zio hadn't reappeared. Janeway wondered if perhaps someone had killed him too. There was no way of knowing. There was no source of reliable information or any order at all in this madhouse. In the dim warmth, weary and frightened, Janeway too fell asleep.

When she awoke, the device was missing from her hands. She lurched around to see Chakotay through the shadows sitting on the edge of the cot, jumpsuit still bunched around his waist, as he pulled wires from the pipe casing. All her fury rose up with tidal force. She lunged at his throat, but even wounded he was too strong and fast for her. He jerked away and used the force of her own attack to throw her under him on the cot. He pulled her arms up to pin her wrists with one big hand. His broad thigh forced her knees apart.

"This is what you want, isn't it?" Chakotay said in a low, vicious tone, like him only in the sound of the voice Janeway knew so well. "This is what you've been begging for all along."

Even in the poor light she could see that the absent look was back in his eyes. The clamp had taken over completely. As she struggled beneath him, Janeway saw in a flash of clarity how this would play out back on Voyager. If he raped her under the influence of the clamp, he would never forgive himself. It would ruin their command relationship, not to mention their friendship, no matter what she did later. With a soft cry, she stopped fighting and did the only thing she could do now, face to face with the brutality that was the clamp.

"You're right," Janeway answered. She lifted her head to brush his lips with a gentle kiss. "It's what I want. Make love to me."

Chakotay blinked. She saw the moment when his eyes changed and became something recognizable again. Her words had acted like a sort of electric shock, overwhelming the clamp's influence momentarily. He released her wrists and lifted himself onto his elbows. She only realized then that she'd hardly been able to breathe under him.

"No," he said finally. "Not in this place. Not like this." He got up, slipped carefully and painfully back into the top of the jumpsuit, and went to stand in a place where he could watch movement out in the prison without being seen. Janeway rolled onto her side, refastened the front of her jumpsuit where Chakotay had yanked it open, and pulled her knees to her chest. She pulled the device close to evaluate the damage. They would have to start all over again. Her normal self would have started immediately, but the clamp and the darkness and the lingering terror of Chakotay's attack upon her made the task seem all but impossible. Sleep was so very tempting. With Chakotay standing guard, she let her head drop to the cot.

It felt like only a few minutes later, but Janeway's legs were cramped in the position where she'd been sleeping. Voices had awakened her: Zio and Chakotay whispering as far away as they could get from her without leaving the shelter. She kept still and listened.

"It'll only get worse," Zio was saying. "You and I will continue to suffer attacks as long as she's with us. I'm only telling you the facts. We will inevitably be killed defending her. Either we escape, or we come up with a way to share her with the other prisoners, maybe barter her for food and supplies."

A scuffling sound made Janeway open one eyelid just enough to see Chakotay grab Zio by the collar of his jumpsuit and haul the smaller man up on his toes.

"Here are the facts." Chakotay's voice hissed, soft but deadly. "She is my friend. I will never barter her, and if you want to get to her, you'll have to kill me first."

"That can be arranged," Zio answered with a smirk. "A woman is a valuable commodity."


	6. Chapter 6

A disruption in the direction of the chute drew all three from the shelter at a run. They charged out and nearly bumped into the wrong end of Tuvok and Ayala's plasma rifles. The rescue was Vulcan in its logic and efficiency. Ropes hauled the rescue party up the chute and Neelix's ship was dodging Akritirian weapons fire on the way back to Voyager before the new arrivals had found their seats.

Back on board Voyager, the Doctor insisted on thorough exams and treatment before releasing the command team from Sickbay. He clucked extensively over the clamps.

"These torture devices have been rewiring your brains," the Doctor declared as Janeway and Chakotay sat facing each other on biobeds, ready to jump up and get back to work now that their physical wounds were healed. "You will be free of the aggressive urges, but you will continue to suffer flashbacks. I recommend at least a week off duty for each of you."

Janeway put her boots on the floor and held up a hand. "We've been off duty for over a week, Doctor. Nothing is keeping me off my bridge."

As the Doctor clucked and stuttered in their wake, the command team marched out of Sickbay side by side.

"Dinner in my quarters or yours?" Janeway asked as they started toward the turbolift. "Anything you want, my replicator rations. On second thought, better not risk this meal on my replicator. Yours is better behaved."

Chakotay came to a halt in the middle of the corridor. He had been very quiet in Sickbay, but Janeway had put it down to the Doctor's rather aggressive rehydration protocol, which had left her feeling half-drowned.

"Before we go any further, I need to apologize for my behavior in the prison," Chakotay said in a halting voice. He was having trouble meeting her eyes. "I was – there are no words for how out of line I was. I hope one day you'll be able to forgive me."

Janeway put a hand in the middle of his chest. "There is no need for any apology," she replied. "You saved my life, more than once. You want to know what I remember? Someone saying, 'This woman is my friend. If you want to get to her, you'll have to kill me first.' I'll remember that for a long time."

Chakotay put his own hand over hers on his chest and squeezed. A warm look, not quite a smile but tending toward one, filled his face. "You know what I'll remember? You saying, 'Make love to me, Chakotay.' I must have been completely crazed with that clamp to say no." He dropped his eyes then looked back at her with a playful expression. "I don't suppose you'd give me a second chance?"

Janeway froze at his words, but slowly her features softened into a smile.

"For the starving man who refused to sell me for a decent meal? Oh, there might be a second chance one of these days. Maybe sooner than you think." She pulled her hand away and walked on with more than the usual swing in her hips. Chakotay fell into step beside her with a grin so big that two ensigns passing the other way stared at each other, then back at their commanding officers, before continuing on their way.

"You don't think they're really – " one said to the other.

"Tom Paris swears up and down that they're not," said the second. "And I guess he ought to know."

"I'm telling you," the first ensign retorted, "that is not the face of a man who's being blueballed for 70,000 light years. That is the face of a happy man."

END


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